Should the World Increase Its Reliance on Nuclear Energy?

October 8, 2012

The Fukushima nuclear disaster last year in Japan changed the discussion of nuclear power. Suddenly, for many people, the dangers of a nuclear accident overshadowed the promise of nuclear power as a clean, readily available source of energy. Around the world, public opinion and many government officials turned against nuclear power.

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More recently, growing concerns about Iran's nuclear-energy program have fueled opposition to the spread of nuclear power around the globe.

Proponents, however, say the backlash is overblown. They argue that nuclear power is the best way to meet the world's voracious and growing demand for electricity without creating massive amounts of greenhouse gases. No other form of renewable energy is up to the task, they say, and the dangers of nuclear power can be managed.

Others aren't convinced. In addition to the safety worries highlighted by Fukushima and Iran, they point to the tremendous expense of building nuclear plants. There are other options, they say, that are far less expensive and much less dangerous.

Mark Lynas, a climate-science author and visiting researcher at Oxford University's School of Geography and the Environment, favors a much greater reliance on nuclear power. Peter A. Bradford, an adjunct professor at the Vermont Law School and former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, argues for the alternatives.

Yes: Climate Change Demands It

By Mark Lynas

In a world with limited need for energy and no danger of climate change, it would be fine to be antinuclear. However, this isn't the world we inhabit.

In the real world, a growing population of seven billion will reach as much as 10 billion by midcentury, most living in the emerging countries whose dramatic economic progress requires vast quantities of cheap energy. If this energy comes primarily from fossil fuels, we face a devastating degree of global warming.

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Mark Lynas
Mark Lynas

Most nuclear opponents persist in the belief that all this future growth—together with continued high energy use in the industrialized world—can somehow be accommodated by wind, solar and other yet-to-be-developed renewables. Undoubtedly some can. But there is not the remotest chance that renewables plus energy efficiency alone can do the job. Currently wind and solar together add up to less than 2% of global electricity production. That proportion can and should increase, but sustainable declines in carbon emissions will require much more.

There are only two proven technologies that can deliver large-scale, predictable electricity without carbon emissions. One is hydroelectricity. It's relatively safe, but big dams impose substantial ecological and social costs, and hydro can't be scaled up much more because of geographical limitations. The second is nuclear power. Much misunderstood and long opposed by greens, it has the potential to scale up quickly and substantially enough to make a significant contribution to tackling both climate change and energy security.

Overstated Danger

Most antinuclear arguments are either overstated or complete myths. One is that radiation at any level is life-threatening. In fact, radiation is a relatively weak carcinogen and one our bodies are well-accustomed to dealing with because of natural radiation from rocks, the atmosphere and space. Routine emissions from nuclear-power stations are so infinitesimally trivial by comparison that they cannot possibly affect anyone's health.

Even when the worst happens, the effects are overstated. Not a single fatality can yet be ascribed to radiation released in last year's Fukushima disaster, and 26 years after Chernobyl, scientists tracking those exposed to the radiation from that disaster have found no greater amount of birth defects or fatal cancers than those in the general population.

Most people also seem to assume that reactor technology has stood still over the years. In fact, modern reactor designs incorporate significant safety advances, and similar progress is being made in the disposal of nuclear waste. New reactor designs even enable existing waste stockpiles to be burned to generate low-carbon power, leaving a much smaller amount of less dangerous unusable material.

Worth the Cost

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The Wall Street Journal

There are currently 400 or so operating nuclear reactors in the world, generating about 13% of global electricity. We need many more, but there are real challenges that need to be overcome. The first is ill-considered opposition from environmentalists, which has distorted public policy for decades in many countries, notably Germany and the U.S.

The second is financing. Both nuclear and renewables share the problem of high capital costs, whereas competing fossil-fuel plants are cheap to build and relatively cheap to operate. It is important to remember, though, that while all low-carbon options will need substantial government support if they are to scale up sufficiently—and all should be pursued—nuclear holds the most promise for meeting the world's energy needs in the decades immediately ahead.

The third challenge is nuclear proliferation. Ideally the entire fuel cycle in every country would be under international supervision in order to avoid the possibility of fuel being diverted for bombs.

There is much to do and little time to do it in. Let's avoid repeating decades-old rancorous debates and instead look at solving the problems of climate change and rising energy demand using the best technologies available. Today that means nuclear power is an essential part of the mix, and its use must grow substantially.

Mr. Lynas is a climate-science author and visiting researcher at Oxford University's School of Geography and the Environment. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

No: It Is Costly and Dangerous

By Peter A. Bradford

If asked whether we should increase our reliance on caviar to fight world hunger, most people would laugh. Relying on an overly expensive commodity to perform an essential task spends too much money for too little benefit, while foreclosing more-promising approaches.

That is nuclear power's fundamental flaw in the search for plentiful energy without climate repercussions, though reactors are also more dangerous than caviar unless you're a sturgeon.

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Peter A. Bradford
Susan Bradford

How dangerous? The full impact on people's health from last year's disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan won't be known for years, if ever. But other impediments to relying on a vast nuclear expansion to fight climate change are already clear: Thousands of Japanese may not return to their contaminated hometowns for many years, if ever. The world's largest private utility is a ward of the state. The Japanese government at the time of the accident has fallen. Four reactors were destroyed live on world-wide television. All of this happened on the watch of a safety regulatory regime thought to have been a world leader.

Iran, like several other nations, has used its civilian power program to justify activities bringing it closer to assembling a nuclear bomb. Enthusiasm for spreading reactors among new nations should remind us that the Shah of Iran's nuclear-power program was featured in 1970s nuclear-industry advertisements. If the next nuclear-power-related catastrophe is a bomb going off in a city, what will happen to a climate strategy based on rapid expansion of the "peaceful atom"?

Of course, new reactor designs are safer. However, safety depends on more than design. A world more reliant on nuclear power would involve many plants in countries that have little experience with nuclear energy, no regulatory background in the field, and some questionable records on quality control, safety and corruption.

But safety isn't why the U.S. stopped ordering new reactors in the mid-1970s. Nuclear power is so much more expensive than alternative ways of providing energy that the world can only increase its nuclear reliance through massive government subsidy—like the $8 billion loan guarantee offered by the federal government to a two-reactor project in Georgia approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this year. That one loan guarantee amounts to $100 in risk exposure per U.S. family. And then there's the quasi-tax that Georgia's government has imposed on its utility customers in the form of early rate increases to help the utility avoid invoking the loan guarantee.

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Many more such direct government subsidies will be needed to scale up nuclear power to any great extent.

There are better choices. John Rowe, former chief executive of Exelon Corp.EXC1.39%, an energy company that relies heavily on nuclear power, recently said, "At today's [natural] gas prices, a new nuclear power plant is out of the money by a factor of two." He added, "It's not something where you can go sharpen the pencil and play. It's economically wrong." His successor, Christopher Crane, recently said gas prices would have to increase roughly fivefold for nuclear to be competitive in the U.S.

Exelon's current low-carbon plan makes clear that many combinations of energy efficiency, renewables and gas beat new nuclear units. In these conditions, governments don't know precisely which technologies will best achieve an energy supply that threatens neither security nor the climate. They should focus on implementing policies like carbon taxes (for climate) or oil import fees (for security) and accept the market's verdict as to which energy sources fit the resulting bill.

Countries that choose power supplies through democratic, transparent and market-based methods aren't building new reactors. Only two are under construction in Europe. The U.S. "nuclear renaissance" has collapsed from 31 announced reactors in 2009 to five now likely to be built, none in states that rely on competitive power markets.

In a world in which nuclear-power policy serves an energy policy that serves the public (not the other way around), countries will steer by "right principles, not the gift of prophecy," as George Kennan wrote half a century ago. That won't be good news for new reactors.

Mr. Bradford is an adjunct professor at the Vermont Law School and former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

If we could cover three southern counties in Nevada with Solar panels and add a significant amount of Pumped energy storage and DC delivery lines to the north East from the South West the entire US could be on a cheap Green Energy. This could be accomplished much faster and cheaper than going into a large Nuke construction program. I agree that Nuclear energy is as green as solar but new solar energy plants are probably cheaper energy than power generated from new Nukes. (Operating Costs + Capital)

Our Judgement when picking power sources is clouded by utility propaganda and bad politics!!

Most of the expense differential is caused by regulatory factors that are designed not to improve safety, but just to make it prohibitively expensive to build a new nuclear plant. The reality is that nuclear is no more dangerous than other types of generation, when all of the factors are taken into consideration, especially if you're dealing with the most modern designs, which were engineered with great concern for safety. There has never been a fatal accident in the US resulting from radiation caused by nuclear power, unless you consider Karen Silkwood's death an accident. Basically, though, she killed herself, and in any event, I don't think the death of one criminally motivated activist ought to decide whether we use this technology.

And as far as nuclear waste is concerned, keep in mind that the stuff we want to put in Yucca Mountain came out of the ground in the first place. We're just putting it back from whence it came. Over time, the total volume of nuclear materials declines exponentially as nuclear decay proceeds. There is nothing you can do to change that. It's just a law of nature. So the total amount of fissionable material will be less in 1000 years than it is today, no matter what we do... irrespective whether we harness the energy or not. We might as well harness it, while we have it.

There have been intense research done using Thorium reactor to generate electricity and it's much safer, cheaper than uranium so why is that every one is hooked on uranium. Maybe to make nuclear weapons?

Nuclear power is the only intelligent alternative. We also need to re-process spend fuel, to gain back the remaining fissionable materials. Waste storage is really just a political problem, not a technical one.

The real energy future lies with thorium LIFTR technolgy which is being developed by the Chinese, Norwegians, Indians and CERN in Switz\erland.

The thorium LIFTR system uses a lithium fluride molten salt reactor that operates at atmospheric pressure. One ton of thorium will produce as much power as 250 tons of raw uranium and accordingly will produce less radioactive waste that has a much shorter halflife.

Active, intense research in new forms of nuclear fission technology should be ongoing. But anti-nuclear hysteria has all but shut off that essential process. Thorium reactors, fuel recycling, breeder reactor technology and much more have not advanced significantly for years for want of research dollars. The anti-nuclear movement does its utmost to stop research and development of potentially safer and cheaper technologies largely by arguing that nuclear fission is inherently unsafe and expensive. It's Ludditism on stilts.

If you search Wikipedia for Neclear and radiation accidents you will find 25 civilion ones listed from 1952 to 2011.

I know that list is incomplete because it does not have Professor Zumansky on it. I had him as a viseting professor at Hofstra. He was doing some experimentation at a reactor at MIT, removed an instrument from the reactor vessile, and accidently walked through the X-ray beam coming out of the port for the instrument .He died that day.

Somewhere on line ther is an additional list of military radiation accidents USA and CCCP.

Mr. Toscana, you or WSJ keep on blocking replies so I have not choice but to open a new comment directed to you. The calculation is very simple. First google CSI Statistics (using CA data - "nice sunny place"). You will see that in 2012 the avg installed cost of PV is $6.47/watt (if people were to do it themselves it would cost less than $2/watt!!).

So, given the 700KW/month consumption, we have: 700 * 12 = 8400 Kwh/year. That is just about a 5KW system (btw that is not the typical US home, that is the typical EU home). So, 5000 * 6.47 = $32350. The federal gov chips in 30% of that. So, $32350 - $9705 = $22645. The utilities will also give just about $1500. Let's give it $1645 for ease of calcualtion. So, you have $22645 - $1645 = $21000. That is assuming full ownership, outright, no lease program, no commerical depreciation, blah blah.

Final cost, $21000. Production over the life of the system (25 years +) = 5000 * 1.7 insolation factor * 25 years = 212500 Kwh.

Cost per Kwh = $21000 / 212500 = $0.09

Just imagine if you could freeze your electricity cost at such value!! But wait! You can! How? Using a PV system. Do you think 25 years from now the utility will sell you a Kwh at $0.09 ?

Finally, we do not agree on the way you look at PV. You cannot average it to 24 hours. After all, that is your point, right? PV is intermittent? That is why you blindly sware your allegiance to these monsters called nuclear and coal power plants.

The time has come. Your generation is over. Mine has just started. Goodbye.

Nuclear Energy is Dangerous! (But less so than most energy sources).Few things in the global discourse are plagued with more disinformation, feelings instead of facts and paid lobbyists than energy production.Consequently, it is almost impossible to listen just to the plain truth, in almost all news and public articles there is a hidden agenda (supported by either the coal, oil, gas, solar, wind or nuclear lobby).So let’s try to be objective for a moment, only for a moment.Question: Which is the country with the most installed nuclear capacity in the world?Answer: The USA.Question: Which has been the worst nuclear power plant accident in the USA since the technology went online in 1957?Answer: The Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.Question: How many people died in that accident?Answer: ZERO.A more recent example that, through media bias, terrorized the world and in particular some world leaders (yes, we are thinking about Angela right now) was the Fukushima Daiichi accident.Question: How many people died in this accident?Answer: One (1). He actually died of a heart attack, but we’ll count him anyway.On the other hand, in the earthquake / tsunami that caused this accident more than 15,000 people died and more than 7,000 are still missing. However, by listening to the news it would almost seem that the casualty numbers are switched.Since the first nuclear power plant went online in 1954 (the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in the then USSR) only two nuclear accidents have been classified at a Level 7 severity (the scale goes from 0 to 7). The only other Level 7 event, aside from the Fukushima Daiichi one was the Chernobyl disaster that caused 57 direct deaths. Sure, there has been much discussion with respect to the indirect deaths caused by Chernobyl, but the UNSCEAR now states: “There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.” On the other hand, France produces almost 80% of its electric power with nuclear plants and, I couldn’t find through my research a single serious nuclear power plant accident in that country, ever. Fact: today 13.5% of the world’s electricity supply is produced by nuclear plants.**So, and just for the record, how does this compare to, say, hydro power, an energy source considered safe and “green” by most people? The worst hydro accident so far has been the burst of a dam in China in 1975 which caused the death of 171,000 people, plus the loss of 11 million homes.And, what about coal? “In the U.S. alone, more than 100,000 coal miners were killed in accidents over the past century.” And in China, according to TIME up to 20,000 coal miners die every year in coal mine accidents. Wow! Fact: today 41% of the world’s electricity is produced with coal.**In the case of coal, as with the other fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, the direct deaths do not include the effects of global warming or air pollution diseases that could potentially kill millions or even billions.So, this leaves us barely two contenders for the “safe” energy badge: sun and wind (sure, a few bats and birds will die at the blades). However, sun and wind are not for the most part “base” energy producers. Peak consumption at most cities is between 8pm and 10pm when, almost by definition we have no useful sunlight and wind may or may not blow at any particular moment. Consequently, humanity needs ample supplies of “base” power. Conclusion: if we set aside lobbying, disinformation and feelings and just focus on the actual track record of nuclear power for its whole 57 years of existence, we have to conclude it is one of the safest, if not the safest, base energy source that humanity has developed. Oh, and did we mention it generates almost no CO2 during operation?

I think that here on the WSJ Internet site, many comments are discussed on the presupposition that you don’t have nuclear leakage from the nuclear reactor in your vicinity. If you start discussion as if you were a resident in Fukushima and citizen adjacent to the area, you could reach the title of this article, “Should World Increase Reliance on Nuclear Energy?”

For your information, the following are the points that the Fukushima people are in agony—extracted from a local journal for Fukushima (for you to know the current life of people there):

Discussion of psychological clinic

1. Idiosyncrasies of radioactive damage by the accident in the nuclear reactors in Fukushima

For radioactive contamination, residents in Fukushima show special tendencies as 1) thin constituency of reality, to 2) regular succession of consequences, to 3) difficulty of decontamination of radioactive materials (Note that for some area, outdoor is 99 micro Sievert, while for other, indoor is 0.4 micro Sievert.), to 4) ill-defined consequences, and as 5) close-knit association to death.

For details on the 5 topics, there is a copyright, so I could not post them here. However, one specific reason, for example, is cesium 137, because it has a half-life of 30 years. As long as radioactivity is emitted, the people continue to be suffered from the emission for those long periods.

To know more about the mentality of the Fukushima residents after the nuclear accident, I think you could ask people in Three Mile Island and those used to live in Marshal Islands.

Feelings, feelings and more feelings is what we see in several of the postings above. If we are talking about religion or maybe even about politics, it is ok to mix as much feelings as we want, but we are talking about energy. In this subject we should stay cozy to the facts, the laws of physics and yes, economics. Can renewable energy provide 100% of our energy? Yes but at a prohibitive cost. Consequently renewables are not really a total solution (yes, they have their place in our energy mix but their penetration is and will continue to be quite modest in a global scale).For example, somebody in the chain above mentions that excess electricity produced by the sun can be converted into hydrogen and then burn the hydrogen when we need the power. Technically this is 100% feasible, but economically... 1. A say, one megawatt solar installation in a nice and sunny place produces on an annual basis only close to 200 kW average power (five times less than the "plate" rating).2. The efficiency of electrolysis (to produce the hydrogen) is around 70%.3. The efficiency of the hydrogen turbine (to move the generator) is probably less than 50%.4. The efficiency of the generator should be in the order of 90%.So, just the last three steps above result in a combined efficiency of 31.5%. In other words, 68.5% of the energy produced by the solar panels is lost in this hydrogen conversion process! And you still have to add the capital expenditures of the electrolysis plant, turbines, generators, etc. It makes absolutely no sense. Besides we don't have to beat so much around the bush, there is something called batteries. We could use them to store the excess electricity, but again it requires considerable investment that will impact the cost of the electricity produced: the batteries themselves, the inverters, warehouses, replacement of the batteries every so often, etc., etc. And sure, it is not particularly "green" to produce so many batteries. Even then if the sky were cloudy for several days the batteries would be completely depleted and conventional energy will have to come to the rescue. In other words, solar (or wind) cannot really replace conventional power plants.

Let's face it, the reason renewables require subsidies to survive is because they are more expensive than conventional energy and, specially, that they fully depend on the conventional electrical grid.

So, let's not talk about wishes, let's talk about facts: when Japan shut down its nuclear plants after the tsunami almost 100% of the replacement energy came from fossil fuels. That's right: not solar, not wind but fossil fuels. They imported more coal, more natural gas and more oil. Their emissions went up and their balance of trade suffered. This are the FACTS. Not the wishes.

Now Germany is embarking in a very expensive renewable experiment and the only reason Germany will not go exactly the way of Japan (that is in substituting all nuclear with fossil fuels) is that France and other neighboring countries will gladly sell them nuclear electricity. Sure, German carbon emissions will go up (because they will increase their coal and natural gas use in generating electricity) but not as much as could be expected if France were not there to help.

As we all know the country at the center of the nuclear hurricane, Japan, is already re-starting its nuclear plants. It is time for all of us to also stop running away scared from nuclear power.

Mr. Lynas, how can you possibly concieve, let alone write such a misinforming article?! Your article can be refuted to a pulp. Renewables: they can deliver 100%+ of our energy needs. It is merely a matter of scale. Exceess daily electricity can be transformed in Hydrogen and back to electricity at night. It is the simpliest of chemical reactions and readily available fuel cells can do the job. They can deliver large scale energy via intelligent EMS and smart grid technology. They can be distributed and localized, therefore lowering losses (56% on the existing grid!!!!). Really, nuclear has the potential to scale up quickly? Have you ever analyzed the construction timeline, financial impact, long term cost of a single nuclear power plant? They are white elephant monstrosities that take decades to build and even more to decomission (Fukushima and Chernobyl anyone?). Your comment on radiation is to be recorded in history and dementia by main media. Perhaps a tour in the children hospitals of Ucraine and Belarus should be part of journalistic and scientific training. I guess you won't take the time to do so as you are too busy to drum the lies of a dieing mad technology. Overstated myths?? O v e r s t a t e d m y t h s?? Arrrghhh. Please, google Dr. Alexey Yablokov, a man that has lived with Chernobyl, its consequences and has documented them. YES, DOCUMENTED them. Something you have not taken the time to do. Your opinion article, totally detached from the reality of cost, consequences, risk analysis, long term consequences is the example of how WSJ has become a rotten sack of eggs.

It is amazing, no, actually unbelievable that we are still discussing this subject. If global warming is NOT a HOAX, then we need nuclear. Period. End of story. Elvis has left the room. "Renewables" are, and will continue to be, niche energy sources. Why? Because they are not constant or reliable. Sometimes we have wind (or sun) and sometimes we do not. In other words, "renewables" are NOT base energy and civilization requires truckloads of base load energy. Technically we can store this energy but economically the costs would be outrageous. And hydro, by the way has pretty much maxed. In the USA it is actually declining. So, let's stop kidding ourselves once and for all: we NEED nuclear. Is nuclear dangerous? Yes it is, BUT not more than other energy sources. Arguably, the most dangerous energy sources by far are fossil fuels: they can bring the planet to the tipping point and bring down civilization, and even our species, with it. The main issue with nuclear is NOT its safety, but its upfront investment. We need an era of innovation in nuclear to make it more cost effective (thorium?). We also need to build the reactors like we now build the Boeings and the Airbuses: standardized designs produced in an assembly line fashion. Let's leave feelings aside and prepare for the moment when we will HAVE to drastically curtail our fossil fuel use. Of the low carbon emitting technologies, only NUCLEAR is ready for prime time. We cannot continue losing time discussing a moot point. We need to drive ahead, full steam, to a nuclear future.

"The WSJ is supposed to be about serious economics, nuclear does not quality, it is a bailout program for big companies too slow to recognize the needed energy technology has shifted."

Granted, that a more safe nuclear program needs to be addressed, but to not qualify it as an affordable and clean form of energy in the economic market place is ridiculous.

"Needed energy technology has shifted"? Shifted to what Paxus? Wind, solar, electric, hydrogen. When you get to a point where planes, trains or automobiles can go from New York to Los Angeles on these new "needed technologies" and is cost effective then maybe I will pay attention, until then this vision is absurd.

Even Bradford admits new nuclear power is even safer, but he does say "The full impact on people's health from last year's disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan won't be known for years," -- which is because the health consequences (if any) are far too small to be measurable.

Cost is an important issue for nuclear power. Advanced molten salt reactor technology, using inexpensive thorium fuel, has the capability to produce electricity cheaper than coal. Cost matters most in the developing nations, where growth of coal generation is strong. Carbon taxes are not accepted by nations with energy poverty, so the only way to dissuade 7 billion people in 250 nations from burning coal is to provide this economical alternative, the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, described in a new book, THORIUM: energy cheaper than coal, described at http://www.thoriumenergycheaperthancoal.com

I favor the development of nuclear energy as a safe, clean source of abundant power. New reactor designs and the prospect of thorium fuel will improve safety. Economy of scale will eventually lower the cost.

I can't believe the continued debate about the safety of nuclear power. Think of how safety has improved in transportation. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the plants were designed in the first two decades of the industry's existence, fewer deaths have been caused by nuclear power than but oil or coal. Less environmental impact as well. Phrases like "how severe is the impact of Fukushima? We still don't know." should switch the lights on but apparently don't. There are no deaths yet directly attributable to radiation from Fukushima. Zero. Thousands from the earthquake and Tsunami though. Many more people have been killed by cigarettes and Big Macs than nuclear power.

The problem with saying that "we shouldn't build nuclear power plants because natural gas is so much cheaper" is that in 20 or 30 years, when we have burned up all that cheap natural gas, there won't be any other source of cheap and reliable electricity production. As wonderful as solar and wind power are, we're not going to have a sustainable economy based on renewable energy sources.

Bradford is a clown. Hard to believe that people like that were actually appointed to be NRC commissioners. Talk about political appointments....

His characterization of nuclear plants as dangerous is demonstrably false. Statistics, and a long operational record, clearly show it to be the safest of the major forms of power generation. No public deaths or measurable public health impact have been attributed to non-Soviet nuclear power over its entire operational history. Even Fukushima has caused no deaths, and most experts believe that there will be no measurable public health impacts in the future.

Meanwhile, fossil fueled power generation is estimated to cause over 20,000 deaths every single year in the US alone (hundreds of thousands worldwide), and is the leading single source of global warming emissions. Worldwide fossil-fueled power generation causes far more dealths than Fukushima ever will (i.e., ~1000) every single day.

Fukushima fuel pool #4 is 100 feet in the air in a building partially destroyed by the earthquake. If it falls it can release sufficient radioactivity to threaten many millions of human lives all across the Northern Hemisphere.

Such a collapse is predicted in an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale. That has a 98% probability of occurring within the next 3 years according to Japanese scientists.

This is the first of Three Ticking Time Bombs. See the Aesop Institute website for much more detail.

The second Time Bomb is a surprisingly possible solar megastorm that can collapse power grids worldwide for months. Nuclear plants without grid power for two weeks become meltdown candidates.

Considering these facts, to believe nuclear power is safe is clearly absurd.

See Cheap Green on the same Aesop Institute website for a few Black Swan alternatives - highly improbable innovations that can completely change the energy and economic outlook.

Honest question: Why can't reactors, along with their spent fuel rods, all be built and stored hundreds of miles away from civilization, such as in the barren tundras of Alaska? It seems like hundreds of facilities could be built in such a manner. Transporting the energy would require a large up-front cost, but it must be possible. We could ameliorate some of our energy problems, while minimizing perceived health risks.

The nuclear industry is an example of a "lock in" technology. Nuclear energy was first developed and used for weapons and that technology - unranium and plutonium - dictated how "atoms for peace" came to use the same toxic elements. Since I like the lights to come on and the air conditioning to work, I will not digress into how we need to live with less power until I am willing to do so myself. But there have to be better alternatives to a power source that creates bomb materials and needs a mini-police state around it plus massive government subsidies. That is free enterprise at its worst, IMO.

Gerald Celente recently published in his Trends Journal a very interesting piece on thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel. It is plentiful, less dirty, compact, doesn't leave bomb-grade fissile material as a by-product, and test reactors in the USA have validated its feasibility. China, Austrralia, India, Israel and Sweden are experimenting or even building thorium reactors. Maybe us, too? But I doubt it given the investment and lock-in of unranium-based power production.

These folk are ignorant of the reactor explosion in Idaho Falls, which killed three, and the partial meltdown of Fermi One upwind of Detroit, or any of the other incidents which give the lie to nuke lovers.

Just ask them how they plan on storing the highly radioactive and toxic nuclear waste, deadly for over 200,000 years! Nobody has yet found a way, no matter what they say.

What kind of person does that to his descendants, what kind of self-centered hateful person would burden all of Humanity following us so they could have cheap electricity?

How much does the electric company charge for electricty and how much does it charge for delivery? If you have a PV system that feeds into the energy frid, don't you think you should be responsible for the cost of maintaining the grid, just like everyone buying electricity from the power company? Therefore, you need to either assume you are off the grid and include the cost of storing your electricty for later which would be much more expensive.

I'm not against PV but again, it isn't for everyone and it won't scale as well in real life as on your spreadsheet. If everyone was to start installing PV systems, we would have a shortage of pollysilicone and prices would rise as they did in 2006 and 2007.

Finally, nuclear power could cost a lot less if the government would come up with a clear energy policy and a plan to deal with nuclear waste. They have been delaying this issue long enough.

So how do you address the period when the sun isn't shining and of course what happens when you take away the subsidies? Photo votaics is not an option without storage and you cannot do a realistic cost assessment by simply assuming the subsidies are free found money!! Afterall the government gets it from someplace...oh ya, us!

It appears your reply link is blocked so I will enter it here. Here is your calculation:

"If we want to convert this to GWh per year, the metric you are using, then this is the equation to use:

200 kW x 24 hours x 365 days = 1.752 GWh per year"

As I am sure you understand, you cannot use a 24 hour base with a Solar system, for obvious reasons: there is no sun at night.

Also, your calculation is simply wrong. With PV systems you must account where, what tilt, azimuth, soiling, weather, etc. etc. you are dealing with. My numbers are from the CSI calculator which is used by CA utilities to forecast production and are a very accurate forecast. Used daily and very well proven.

Now getting to your point... I am sure you well understand that at night the consumption of energy is a fraction of daily use. Typical examples are summer hot days when the utilities have to run most of their plants to face demand. That is precisely where PV works at its best and utilities very well know that and welcome the decentralized PV plants that stabilize the grid. Nothing, literally nothing, prevents US to go Solar 100%, not even cost. PV has reached parity just a few months ago and PV prices are still dropping. You can purchase chinese modules as cheap as $0.62/watt, from $10-12/watt in the year 2000.

So, it is merely a case of awareness and choice. FYI, it is ALREADY happening. CA has a 33% Renewable mandate by 2020. That is merely 8 years from now. Companies that have installed solar find the freezing of their energy cost too enticing to be passed. When the financing is right, they can freeze their energy cost at $0.04 to $0.14/Kwh!! Compare that with the utilities' $.0.45/Kwh in summer time.

The only piece of the puzzle that is still relatively expensive are the fuel cells (at $5/watt). Those too are dropping really fast. As you can imagine, it is again a mere factor of scale. The moment they are mass produced, it is a done deal. That is to be expected given the mandates and the incentives.

Finally, you are mentioning T&D losess, correctly at 7%, but sorry, that is a dishonest comparison. When comparing with PV you have to compare the whole chain, from production, to transmission, distribution, final utilization. If you log back on the EIA.gov website (http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=107&t=3) you will see that the coal power plant efficiency is an aweful 34% which means 66% is lost in heat, gone, bye bye. Nuclear stand at 36%.

I stand by my numbers and conclusion: fossil fuels and nuclear are a technology for troglodites. They are all finite, they all come with major consequences, they are all in the hands of a few.

Solar is the way to go and with it come infinite opportunities for ALL.

You are so lost. Being you agree it is technically possible, I will spare your from that explanation. On the other hand, the approximation of your 4 points is phenomenal.

1 MW of PV "in a nice sunny place" (shall we use Souther California?), will produce in one year: 1,547,937 Kwh. That is 1.547 Gwh of energy (Giga, not a typo). You can calculate that value yourself if you google "CSI Calculator" and punch in the numbers:180 degree azimuth, 30 degree tilt, 4000 250W modules, etc. You are confusing power with energy when you mention 200KW. You are also not considering that the fuel is completely free, does not need to mined, tranported, refined, burned (or undergo fission), disposed of. You are also completely disregarding the health and environmental damage coal, uranium even thorium DO cause.

Most of all, you seem to completely miss the point when it comes to efficiency. PV modules are anywhere between 9 and 20% efficient. What does that mean? Do you know? It means that out of the 1000 watts per square meter the sun cast on earth surface, they capture anywhere between 90 and 200 watts, given a module of 1 m2 of surface. So their efficiency is solely to be understood as a factor of available surface and power density. Therefore the question: do we have sufficient surface to take care of our needs? We most certainly do. A mere 800 sq ft (on a low "efficiency" module) suffice for an avg US home. US roofs have 4+ times such surface.

Additonally, true inefficiencies (soiling, module mistmatching, inverter down time, etc.) are usually anywhere between 4-15% on very sloppy designs and installations. Going back to the 1MW power plant, that means that out of the potential 1000w/m2 of power, such plant would capture 85-96% of it. Compare that with 56% LOSS on the EXISTING US grid. Also, consider that most of the embedded energy in coal, oil, gas, etc. is wasted in heat which normally is not used and merely dumped in the athmosphere. So, you have inefficiencies in the process of obtaining the raw material, producing electricity and trasmitting it. But we got so used to it that we no longer see it, even in the engineering world where I have to explain this point over and over to very intelligent engineers that simply happen not to know this simple fact.

So, fossil fuels are ineherently inefficient, while PV is ineherently efficient. Very little is wasted in transmission (as the travel length is minimal) and all the module can capture it does capture and does not waste in heat or other non useful effects.

Sorry for being lenghty... there is a lot to be said on Hydrogen and its potential...

Solar and wind energy cost two to five times as much as electricity generated from coal or natural gas. If one were to do as you suggest and convert excess daily production in hydrogen, it would double the cost, making it four to ten times as costly as energy produced from coal or natural gas. As far as distributing and localizing it, hydrogen is extremely flammable. Not something I want next door.

If nuclear has an accident every 50 years that puts a piece of land the size of the Chernobyl disaster out of commission and raises background radiation, it could be easily argued that this energy source is also unsustainable.

Nukes have the lowest efficiency of any thermal power system. in the twenties! that means over 70% of the heat is going into the environment and not into electricity. How are you going to cool those plants? They take massive amounts of water!

Now, the waste: It lasts for 240,000 years - how do you expect to devise a warning sign for civilizations that far into the future? How do you plan on keeping it from living things for a quarter of a million years?

Why would you do this to our children, grandchildren, and all other Humans from now on until essentially forever in Human terms??

Really Christian? What world do you live in? Clearly not the one of science or engineering, let alone finance. Have you attempted a calculation about the cost of such "hundreds of facilities"? Have you even wondered about the transmission lines and deep losses you would incur in? As you put it, it must be possible. By that token anything "must be possible", but certainly not everything makes sense. Where would you put the lines, over British Columbia? In the ocean? Existing lines lose 56% of the electricity produced, even when the voltage reaches upwards of 750KV.

By the way, who said there is no civilization in Alaska? Shouldn't the people of Alaska have a say? What about Nature? Shouldn't we consider that too?

The PV modules on my roof disturbe no one, pollute no one, disperse no energy. They work every day. Look up! The solution is there!

Because when it encounters water it becomes a lethal mix, the toxicity can no longer be contained.Let me give you an example, the EPA defines the acceptable level of radium ions in a water supply to be 5 PCu/l, that is 5 pico-curies per liter. Above that you have a statistical significant level of cancer occurrence for some people. So tell me, how much is that, and how much water could a 2 gram gummy bear in weight of Radium put over the EPA limit? Hint, radium 226 was the gauge unit for the Curie, 1 Curie = 1 gram Radium 226 .

Could a fossil-fueled plant (esp. coal) be built here if they had to pay full compensation for the $100 billion in economic damages caused every year in the US alone by such plants (according to EPA), along with compensation for the ~20,000 annual deaths and the global warming impacts?

If such external costs were reflected their electricity cost would double. The free pollution subsidy enjoyed by fossil fuel power plants is ~100 times any liability limit subsidy enjoyed by nuclear. The possibility of not having to pay all the compensation in the extremely unlikely/rare event of a pollution release is obviously much less of a subsidy than not having to pay any compensation at all for continuous release of massive amounts of (very harmful) pollution.

Spent reactor fuel is essentially useless as a "bomb material", being harder to make a bomb from than raw uranium ore (which is fairly ubiquitous). Nuclear power plants do not represent a proliferation risk.

All sorts of facilities employ armed guards. Sound like a good source of local employment to me, nothing more.

Nuclear is one of the least, if not the least, subsidised of all energy sources. (Renewables are by far the most subsidised.)

An industrial society requires cheap electricity if it is to stay technological. Solar and wind are much too unreliable, expensive and take too much room to ever be more than a tertiary source of energy.

New generation fission reactors are extremely safe, reliable and can provide vast amounts of energy.

The issue with nuclear waste is a problem largely because of Harry Reid. Nuclear waste can be processed into a glass like substance; sealed in a welded stainless steel canister and buried in a mountain with complete and utter safety. It works in Europe and other locations.

Hank, are all of you so simple? A modern grid is fed from a multiplicity of sources, all integrated and dispatched as appropriate. Here in California, we use everything from wind to hydro, pumped storage, photovoltaic. solar thermal, geothermal, nukes, gas fired supercritical boilers, gas combined-cycle, landfill gas, and even the emergency generators in the facilities of customers, dispatched by the utility.

Nobody will use only one source, with its liabilities.

I think those of you who are not in the field are getting fooled again, like you did with "WMD!".

Message by Elp Tique: Mr. Toscana, you or WSJ keep on blocking replies so I have not choice but to send you msg directly. Too bad as the WSJ visitors might be interested in this. The calculation is very simple. First google CSI Statistics (using CA data - "nice sunny place"). You will see that in 2012 the avg installed cost of PV is $6.47/watt (if people were to do it themselves it would cost less than $2/watt!!). So, given the 700KW/month consumption, we have: 700 * 12 = 8400 Kwh/year. That is just about a 5KW system (btw that is not the typical US home, that is the typical EU home). So, 5000 * 6.47 = $32350. The federal gov chips in 30% of that. So, $32350 - $9705 = $22645. The utilities will also give just about $1500. Let's give it $1645 for ease of calcualtion. So, you have $22645 - $1645 = $21000. That is assuming full ownership, outright, no lease program, no commerical depreciation, blah blah.

Final cost, $21000. Production over the life of the system (25 years +) = 5000 * 1.7 insolation factor * 25 years = 212500 Kwh.

Cost per Kwh = $21000 / 212500 = $0.09

Just imagine if you could freeze your electricity cost at such value!! But wait! You can! How? Using a PV system. Do you think 25 years from now the utility will sell you a Kwh at $0.09 ?

Finally, we do not agree on the way you look at PV. You cannot average it to 24 hours. After all, that is your point, right? PV is intermittent? That is why you blindly sware your allegiance to these monsters called nuclear and coal power plants.

The time has come. Your generation is over. Mine has just started. Goodbye.

Message by Gabriel Toscana: Hmmm... I'm not blocking anything. Actually I wouldn't even know how to block it. The data for the "typical USA home" I got from Energy Efficient Homes for Dummies, in location 1567 (Kindle edition). My calculation for the solar installation required is:700 x 12 = 8,400 kWh per year.8,400 / 24 / 365 / 0.1766 = 5.430 kW solar installation. (Give or take, we agree here).How much would this system produce in 25 years:5,430 x 0.1766 x 24 x 365 = 210,007 kWh (there is some degrading of performance with time but I will not contest it. So, again, we agree here).With the cost I do have one issue: the 30% that the government chips in is still a cost, if not to the owner, to society. So that has to be added to the real cost of the PV electricity connected to the grid.Now with the issue I DO have a problem is that in the challenge we said "wean" the house from the electricity network. If we are moving to 100% solar world then we DON'T have anything to back up this power. So a house weaned from the grid needs in addition to the above investment in panels, banks of industrial batteries, plus industrial grade inverters, plus the replacement of the batteries every 3 years or so. And a "safety factor" needs to be calculated in the installation so the first cloudy day doesn't deplete the batteries and leave the house in darkness and powerless.And this is precisely the point I'm trying to communicate: solar depends on the conventional fossil fueled / nuclear / hydro grid. Without them the costs of solar are outrageous. So again, let's do the exercise complete and answer the original question: how much will it cost TODAY to wean a typical American home from the electrical grid? "Wean" means NO connection to the grid.And by the way, MY house has solar PV connected to the grid, plus a wind turbine for generating electricity, plus a solar water heater, it is the greenest house in the neighborhood by far, BUT I fully understand that what is a solution for a family, for a company, or maybe even for a small country like Denmark, cannot be the solution for the world. Why? Because we depend in the conventional power grid and without it the costs skyrocket and the reliability of the system tanks.

Dear Mr. Tique,No, no, no! THIS is the point WE both do AGREE upon. So let me state it a little bit differently to make myself better understood. The 20% capacity factor in my equation was for a "nice and sunny place", HOWEVER if we use the capacity factor calculated with your calculator, 17.66%, then we arrive at THE SAME ANSWER. Here is the equation:1 MW x 17.66% x 24 hours x 365 days = 1.547 MWh.In this point we FULLY agree, so there is no need to elaborate further except to indicate that by definition capacity factor is the AVERAGE annual production of an installation.Sure, we all know that solar photo-voltaic output is NOT constant. If the days are sunny the production curves look like clipped sinusoidal waves, if the days are cloudy they don't even look smooth. For whomever is interested and as an example, here is how the REAL output of a solar installation looks:https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/dJ646521We can see it daily, weekly, monthly, annually, etc. The production varies hour by hour and day by day and month by month. Cloudy days seriously reduce the production of power.So again, the point above is the one in which we both AGREE.Now with respect to peak hour electricity consumption, it moves depending on the season and the day's temperature. This can be checked in several places such as the FERC - Division of Energy Market Oversight. And again, cloudy days reduce the output of solar panels by up to 90%, or even more. (See it in the link above). Now, the only reason "PV has reached parity" is that PV uses the conventional energy grid. PV injects to the grid the excess energy it produces and then at night, or when it is cloudy the grid supplies the energy. In other words, almost all PV has to be backed up by conventional energy sources and thus we are duplicating investments.But, OK, let's stop talking about theory and get real. Here we launch a challenge: how much will it cost TODAY to wean a typical American home from the electrical grid with photo-voltaic-panels. "The typical North American home consumes around 700 kWh per month."PLEASE, let's make the cost calculations and share them here. For the purpose of continuity let's state that the solar capacity factor where the home is located is 17.66%. Aside from the panels we'll need the inverters and the industrial strength batteries that will need to be replaced regularly. Besides, the occupants of that home will have to pray that consecutive cloudy days don't happen.This exercise is to understand the costs of weaning one single home from the grid. But it would give us an idea of what it would cost to go fully solar in a country.Are you game?Thank you.P.S. I ran out of space to comment on the "total efficiency", well to light bulb. ;-)

Mr. Tique,Thank you for your kind and detailed response. First let me state in what we do agree. In the first point above, this is what we stated:1. A say, one megawatt solar installation in a nice and sunny place produces on an annual basis only close to 200 kW average power (five times less than the "plate" rating).

If we want to convert this to GWh per year, the metric you are using, then this is the equation to use:200 kW x 24 hours x 365 days = 1.752 GWh per year. So your numbers are actually even more conservative than mine. ;-) I think this point is completely settled to your satisfaction. The confusion was in the fact that I am using "average power" and you are actually calculating annual energy. So, this installation in Southern California yields only a 17.65% capacity factor (vs. the 20% I was estimating for a "nice and sunny" place).Note that we are not talking at all about the efficiency of the solar panels. That is another subject that is not too relevant to the discussion at hand.Now, with respect to losses in the USA's grid, "according to EIA data, national, annual electricity transmission and distribution losses average about 7% of the electricity that is transmitted in the United States." The 56% loss stated in your comment above seems a little (a lot) overstated.There is no question that in THEORY we could supply all our energy needs with solar energy, but in PRACTICE this is just not possible. Period. At least not in the foreseeable future. Why? Because it would be outrageously expensive.Today, both in relative and in absolute terms, Germany is the world leader in solar photo-voltaic installations (and by the way, their real capacity factor is close to 9%, vs the 17.65% you kindly calculated for Southern California) and, as published yesterday (October 10, 2012) in Der Spiegel, "As long as there isn't enough storage capacity, virtually every solar plant and every wind turbine has to be backed up by a conventional power plant. Without this double structure, the power supply would collapse."So, bottom line, it is "nice to know" that the Earth receives enough sunlight to power all humanity needs, but we are nowhere near to harnessing that energy because it is just not economically feasible (once you include all the hidden costs of renewables).Thank you.

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